Zambia's changing mining landscape and firm-level technological capabilities development among local engineering and manufacturing suppliers

Firm-level technological capabilities (FTCs) are a crucially significant aspect local suppliers ought to continually develop to overcome exclusion in Zambia's multinational corporations (MNCs) - dominated mining sector. Despite Zambia's long history of copper mining, FTCs development processes among local suppliers have been characterised by disjointed pathways across the political, economic and mining reforms since independence in 1964. The narrative that local suppliers, unlike their foreign counterparts, are often excluded from the copper mining value chain because they lack capabilities exists. This paper is in this debate, but its point of departure is evidence of technological capabilities development among local suppliers in manufacturing and engineering services. Empirical evidence shows the constant exclusion of local suppliers from significant participation in the mining value chain despite varying presence of FTCs development in different political and economic dispensations. The remedy lies in a mining environment shaped under the government's holistic aegis.